TIDAL attracts waves of controversy hours after high-profile launch

The service has been relaunched following the $56 million takeover from Hov, and last night (30 March) held a distinctly bizarre conference where lots of big-name musicians signed something very top secret, made pledges, and got confused - Madonna was caught mouthing, presciently, "what happens now?". While it's all very flashy, and a lot of reputable names are throwing their weight behind it, the fans and music consumers seem to be less that enamoured; or, those that aren't are just shouting much louder.

Apparently Tidal want to "re-establish the value of music" and be "the first music streaming service that combines the best High Fidelity sound quality, High Definition music videos and expertly Curated Editorial". Owned by musicians, Jay Z's newfound cabal want to take music back into the hands of the artists, and do away with the likes of Spotify taking advantage of musicians by paying them next to nothing. Bjork, Radiohead and Taylor Swift are probably paying pretty close attention. Tidal charges almost double Spotify, at $19.95 a month in the US, but offers exclusive content, such as White Stripes and Daft Punk videos, and expertly-curated playlists from the likes of Beyoncé. There is no free option, but a lower-quality version is cheaper.

As part of the Twitter-friendly marketing campaign, a lot of high-profile artists - such as Nicki Minaj, Rihanna and Kanye West - all changed their avatars blue to tease the announcement. Childish Gambino changed his to red; make of that what you will.

A lot of people on Twitter seemed unimpressed at the lack of features, and the seemingly unwarranted pricetag.

awww isnt this cute, the worlds celebs are finally doing some vocal hashtag activism and its just so they can make more money #TIDALforALL

— Jeff Schnitzler (@Teh_ThumbMaster) March 30, 2015

So proud of the upper echelons of the music industry all banding together to make Jay-Z some money. #TIDALforALL

— Kit James (@KingdomOfTheEgo) March 30, 2015

... The argument that it's artist owned, well, only matters to the artists, not the fan #TIDALforALL

— Andreas Mahringer (@mahringer_a) March 31, 2015

Please help these starving artists. Download @TIDALHiFi Today #TIDALforALL #TIDALforNOONE

— HΔZΞL SILHΘUΞT (@hazelsilhouet) March 31, 2015

Others claim that Tidal is plagiarising Spotify, and that Tidal is plagiarising other artists.

So many “artists" behind the new @TIDALHiFi streaming service, but so little creativity. Epic UI plagiarism pic.twitter.com/WpRQozEpFe

— Jamie Edwards (@jmedwards) March 31, 2015

Popjustice have a useful guide to the ins and outs of Tidal, and if you want more information before you champion, condemn or shrug it off, head here to read more.

You can check out the service for yourself here, and watch part of last night's launch below.